Centre says exploration in Southern Tamil Nadu won't impact livelihood

Villagers fear depletion of soil quality, ground water contamination and methane generation

Amid protest against exploration of hydrocarbons in Southern Tamil Nadu, the Centre today said that exploration will not affect agriculture or the quality of soil of the entire lease area.

Neduvasal, a fertile village of the Cauvery delta bordering Pudukottai and Thanjavur districts, is one of the 31 contract areas of small fields where the exploration of hydrocarbons is to be taken up as per a recent decision of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA). Villagers have started protesting against the decision fearing it will impact their livlihood.

CCEA has approved the award of 31 contract areas as part of the Discovered Small Field (DSF) Bid Round 2016. These fields were offered under a new policy for small fields known as Discovered Small Field (DSF) Policy, 2015.

Currently, there are three operational exploration blocks (approximately 1,461 sq km) under Production Sharing Contract System in Tamil Nadu where hydrocarbon exploration is going on. Under the nomination regime, 31 mining leases covering about 3,500 sq km have been granted in the state from where 600 tonnes of Oil and three million cubic metres of natural gas are produced per day. Till date, more than 700 wells have been drilled for extraction of oil and gas in Tamil Nadu.

"These active operations are not hampering agriculture in nearby areas and do not pose any known environmental impact or health hazards on living beings of the operational area," the Centre said.

The two contract areas of Karaikal (10.4 Sqkm) in Puducherry and Neduvasal (10.0 Sqkm) in Tamil Nadu, awarded under the DSF bidding round, have an in-place volume of 4,30,000 metric tonnes of oil and oil-equivalent gas.

In the past weeks, some concerns have been raised over the impact of E&P activities proposed to be undertaken in these oil and gas fields on agriculture and soil condition in the region, contamination of ground water table, and of methane generation.

The government said extraction of oil and gas from sub-surface is an established practice and the E&P industry uses state-of-the-art technology, taking maximum care to limit environmental effects. The operators also get an environment impact assessment done before carrying out any drilling activities and other activities.

Process of drilling and production requires very limited surface land area (generally 120x120 square metres), which will not affect agriculture or the soil of the entire lease area. Additionally, operators are required to follow strict environmental norms for the use of operational land.

Oil and gas extraction is being carried out from deeper earth area (generally of more than 1,000 metres depth), and doesn't affect ground water acquifiers which are located at much shallower levels. Hydrocarbon extraction method is being used worldwide which has not seen any direct impact to water resources of the mining area. Also, while drilling for oil & gas, cement casing is used; hence, there is no impact on groundwater as such. As the principal component of natural gas, methane is being used as house hold fuel globally in the form of PNG.

Others concerns about adverse environmental impact on nearby areas and the people living there are also misplaced, as all petroleum operations require prior environmental clearances from Ministry of Environmental and Forest, wherein public hearing is an integral part of obtaining these clearances.

As per the contract terms, these fields are to be put on production within three years from the date of Mining Lease (ML). Hydrocarbon production from these fields will result in several economic benefits to state and its people in the form of royalty, VAT, additional employment generation and economic development of the state. As per estimates, the two contract areas are expected to generate gross revenue of Rs 300 crore, royalty to State Government of Rs 40 crore and additional employment for about 500 persons.